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Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:01 am
by Pacerier
Hi people, I need some desperate advice on how to recover data in Cinta 3.6.

Background: Before, I used Cinta 3.6, I was using Cinta 3.5. On 31st March it crashed with that usual "malformed database" error, but after 4 hours I managed to salvage the data again. From there, I moved on to Cinta 3.6 while still using the old db. Pragma integrity check at this point is OK.

I dl-ed Cinta 3.6 on 1st April.

In Cinta 3.6, when I create a new note-window (Ctrl-N) and enter data, even without yet saving it using "OK" button, I can exit Cinta, re-open it again, and those half-done note-windows would popup and I can continue working on them.

I've been relying on this data-saving behavior for saving my half-done note-windows. There's about 8 of them opened since weeks ago and there's a wealth of data stored within them since then.

For the past 20 days, there has been no crash error. Indeed, I can exit Cinta, re-open, and all the half-done note-windows would popup fine with the data fully intact.

But today, halfway while working on those half-done note-windows, there's an error. The error occured when I double-clicked an existing note trying to open it. (Yes, I always have about 10 Cinta note-windows opened at any one time.)

The error is as such:
---------------------------
CintaNotes
---------------------------
Oops.. something went wrong!
Please press Ctrl+C to copy the error information
and email it to support@cintanotes.com so that we can fix it:

SE EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION at address 0x7781DD93 inside C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll loaded at base address 0x77800000
Invalid operation: write at address 0x700079

---------------------------
OK
---------------------------


Cinta automatically exited after I had copied the error message. Then when Cinta had been closed, I did a backup of database.db immediately into a backup folder.

I re-opened Cinta again. The halfworked note-windows still popup as per normal. So at this point I don't think there's a data loss yet.

After that, I tried to restore data, but there are some issues. So I deleted database.db and wanted to redo the restore from scratch. (I have the backup of database.db).

I accidentally re-opened Cinta without a database.db, and it generated a completely new `database.db` file. So what I did was I exited Cinta and removed the generated DB. Then, I moved my original database.db back into the folder.

But now when I open Cinta. Those half-worked note-windows no longer appear!

Anyone knows where is the data stored? Or how can the data be retrieved?

(I absolutely can't afford to lose my research data because they can't be regenerated.)

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 12:12 pm
by date
I wonder how you make it so that when you exit the note is not stored in the 'main book.' Exit via system tray or File-Exit, and the opened ones are saved regardless if closed or not, saved or not.
But if the database was unencrypted and you remember something that was contained in such an 'unsaved' note with some luck you should be able to locate a database file where the data was stored in with findstr. Just open the command line and type 'findstr /s WordYouRemember c:\*.db' . (/s means subdirecories, so this searches whole c drive.)

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 12:19 pm
by Pacerier
Hi, but since I have the original (byte-for-byte equal) database.db backup, what may be the reason that the windows used to appear initially yet now it doesn't?

Does Cinta store any state outside of database.db?

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 12:47 pm
by date
The placement of the windows and the opened notes is in the human-readable cintanotes.settings file. Sometimes there also is a temporary notebook.db-journal file generated... Thats all I know. But did you search for something you remember with findstr? Just try it, or did you set a password on the db?

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 12:39 am
by Pacerier
Hi, I do not use any encryption, but there's no way I could recall which sets of data are in the worked files and which are in the unworked files (I'm working on 100s of notes and the db in total has over 10k notes from eons ago). There's just too much data.

Which item in the settings file are the info saved? I went through the settings file but couldn't find it.

Btw do you know anything about the structure of the database file? I posted a separate question here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2285

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 6:57 am
by date
noteeditmanager.reopen.ids.

Here is the order of events at my place:
1. You open or make a new note. It is not saved anywhere until you close the note or press Ctrl-S. The note edits are not searchable in the main window.
2. You exit the program. The edits are saved in the .db. The opened windows are stored in the cintanotes.settings. The modification dates of the notes are stored as well in the .db.
3. Next time you start CN, the note edits are searchable because they were saved. And the windows are reopened because the placements have been stored in cintanotes.settings.

When you accidentally reopened CN without a .db file, it changed the cintanotes.settings file, that's all. But if you do not remember what you are looking for, how do you know you found it? You are looking for the notes themselves or which ones were opened? Because those are different things.
The worst case scenario is when you stuck at event #1 and have not exited the CN for all those weeks.

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 4:46 pm
by CintaNotes Developer
Hello Pacerier,

I understand how critical the issue is to you, but there's really no need to create so many topics..

date is absolutely correct - CintaNotes DOESN'T have any special "halfworked" note state. When you exit the program the unsaved notes are saved to the database just as if you closed them by pressing OK.

The information is not lost, what might be lost is only the information which notes should be reopened.

Probably sorting the list by modification date will help here. You'll be able to easily see the notes that were edited last.

Hope this helps!

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 5:39 pm
by CintaNotes Developer
It is unfortunately probable that the information that was added since last restart, was lost.
The auto-save feature in still in the plans: http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topics/61 ... ited-note/
Currently it's best to at least press Ctrl+S once in a while if you leave editor windows open for a long time.

BTW do you remember what you were doing when the crash happened? is the crash repeatable?

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 10:55 pm
by Pacerier
This is probable the 8th time I've encountered a crash ever since I started using cintanotes (last year?). Everytime it's the same: You get a "malformed database" popup when you open a saved note OR when you try to save one.

And once you get a "malformed database" there is nothing you can do to stop the error except backup and exit. And I have hourlys, dailys, weekly backups all ticked. So I do another backup and exit. But didn't realize that the "opened" information is neither in any of these 4 databases. It's as said, saved in the settings file which doesn't have a backup.

I opened cintanotes.db using a UI editor. Is there any table which might hint which files are opened? I have about ~8(?) of them.

But if you do not remember what you are looking for, how do you know you found it?


I'll know when I can retrieve about ~8 of them. If there are ~8 of them that is "special" in the database among the 10k notes, then those would thus be the opened ones.

So those data logs are in a halfstate now. I need to know which of them it is so that I can continue working on them later. It's very important to know which of them it is. Think of them as instructions on a stack of papers on the office desk, eg:

- Window 1: Put inventory X in Y, observe the growth and log it down at this cursor state.
- Window 2: Take medicine on shelf X, feed the kid, put it on shelf Y, take medicine that is already on shelf Y, bring it to lab X.
- Window 3: Close the ticking bomb running, see the digit outputed. Open the Note with this digit, skip X rows, put the cursor there and leave it open.
- Window 4: Merge results X with Y, diff it with Z, and log it down at this cursor state. Next open Window Z, leave that open, and close this window.

(Obviously that's just a rough idea, not the actual data logs in my notes.)

And there's no way I can simply sort the 10k notes by last modified date and go through each note. Because all of them look like this, I wouldn't know which ones are the ones that are Todo and which ones are the ones that are not Todo. Using the analogy again, it's like a paper on my office desk that I took out weeks ago. I left it on my office desk and I wouldn't know which paper it is if someone put the paper back into the shelf.

I opened cintanotes.db using a UI editor. Is there any table which might hint which files are opened? I have about ~8(?) of them.

If the file ids are retrievable, but not the cursor state of the file. It is still very useful. I can manually scroll down the file and try to guess where the cursor state was.

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2017 2:40 pm
by CintaNotes Developer
Sorting by modified date you can tell which notes were edited last. Won't this be enough?

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2017 9:22 pm
by Pacerier
Sorting by last modified date, I have 150 documents [long long notes] in the last month. There's no way to pick out the 8 document within these 150 documents without some sort of clue.

I opened cintanotes.db using a UI editor. Is there any table which might hint which files are opened?

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2017 7:43 am
by rhickman
From what I understand from reading the thread, that information is not stored in the database. I think it may have been in the cintanotes settings file.

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:13 am
by date
Pacerier wrote:I opened cintanotes.db using a UI editor. Is there any table which might hint which files are opened?
No. You can easily confirm this with file monitoring tools. Just opening (and not saving) notes does not change anything to the database.

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Mon May 01, 2017 1:40 am
by Pacerier
CintaNotes Developer wrote:BTW do you remember what you were doing when the crash happened? is the crash repeatable?


I'm not doing anything special, just doing usual stuff with cintanotes when it crashed.

I found out something today. It should be a bug somewhere when you are writing to the settings file:

When opening a cintanotes.db with settings file 1, or with no settings file, there are no problems. When opening it with settings file 2, or settings file 3, there are errors.

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Wed May 03, 2017 10:04 am
by CintaNotes Developer
I'm sorry for the delay. Email notifications didn't come through.
Could you please send the problematic setting files to support@cintanotes.com?

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Thu May 04, 2017 11:34 am
by Pacerier
I was playing around with the settings file. Deleting, re-creating, modifying, etc, so I found out that its something about the settings file that is causing the error.

But the file has been constantly modified and there are no backups of the modifications done.

Do you store past settings info in the database anywhere?

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Thu May 04, 2017 12:23 pm
by CintaNotes Developer
No, I'm afraid settings file is not stored in the database.

Perhaps it would be no consolation, but I've bumped up the priority of adding autosave functionality to CN.
It's now planned for version 3.8.

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Thu May 04, 2017 2:35 pm
by Pacerier
Hopefully other users can request for data integrity too...

Really, I don't mind if there are no cool features. I don't even mind if it's slow. I don't even mind if it costs $999 a day (because then I would have switched since it's too ex).

...But when it starts losing data, especially completely non-renewable data with Deprival Value valued upwards of 3 months of work (of my life) or indeed, infinitely more, since lost data is lost forever, Omg, just simply Omg!, there's no way I can don't regret getting introduced to Cinta whenever that happens.

Re: Need desperate help: Cintanotes 3.6 Crash and Gravely Important data loss

Posted: Thu May 04, 2017 3:08 pm
by CintaNotes Developer
I'm truly sorry for the data loss. Truly I am, and I'm going to improve CintaNotes in this regard so that it doesn't happen again.
However, you have to admit that if the data was this important, you should have thought about using Save command at least once in a while...
Also, you seem to be using CintaNotes for a very unusual task. It has never dawned upon us that the information about _which_ notes were being edited could be so vitally important. It usually isn't. The note data itself is most probably not lost.